973.7L63 
C2SeG9 


he  Service  of  dedication 
of  the  monument  erected 
above  the  graves  of 
Thomas  and  Sarah  Bush 
Lincoln,  father  and  step- 
mother of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
Old  Gordon  Cemetery... 


LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://archive.org/details/serviceofdedicatOOIion 


THE  SERVICE  OF  DEDICATION  OF 

THE  MONUMENT 

ERECTED  ABOVE  THE  GRAVES  OF 

THOMAS  AND  SARAH  BUSH  LINCOLN 

FATHER  AND  STEP-MOTHER  OF 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


ILLINOIS  LIONS  CLUBS 


OLD  GORDON  CEMETERY 

SHILOH  CHURCH 

NEAR  JANESVILLE,  ILLINOIS 

FRIDAY,  MAY  l<v  1924 


)  ,!* 


Wc  tender  to  you  this  monument  with  the 
gladness  of  heart  of  every  American  who 
loves  and  reveres  the  name  of  Lincoln. 
May  it  stand  here  among  you  as  a  constant 
reminder  to  the  world  that  the  father  and 
mother  of  a  great  man  are  recognized  and 
remembered  as  having  been  the  dominant 
force  and  factor  in  making  that  great  man. 
John  F.  Garner. 

And  we  honor  the  rugged  honesty,  the 
simple  dignity,  the  unpretentious  piety,  that 
characterized  the  home  life  of  Thomas  and 
Sarah  Lincoln.  William  E.  Barton. 


The  poverty  of  these  pioneers  was  that 
kind  of  poverty  in  which  sturdy  independ- 
ence thrived.  Frank  O.  Lowden. 


And  through  it  all  (the  life  of  Abraham 
Lincoln)  was  the  influence  of  the  father 
and  step-mother — intangible  but  powerful: 
With  his  struggles  came  the  knowledge  of 
the  value  of  a  good  heredity  through  the 
one  and  the  help  of  environment  through 
the  other.    He  honored  both. 

Wayne  C.  Townley. 


IN  MEMORY  OF 

THOMAS  AND  SARAH  BUSH  LINCOLN 

WHOSE  HUMBLE  BUT  WORTHY  HOME 

GAVE  TO  THE  WORLD  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 

THE  LIONS  CLUBS  OF  ILLINOIS 

HAVE  ERECTED  THIS  MEMORIAL 


DEDICATION 
FRIDAY,  MAY  16,  1924 


OLD  GORDON  CEMETERY 

SHILOH  CHURCH 

NEAR  JANESVILLE,  ILLINOIS 


7.»»S«!i*5»*M* 


Members  "of  that  vanguard  of  hardy  pioneers  which  builded 
the  mighty  States  west  of  the  Allegheny  Mountains." 

Frank  O.  Lowden. 


PROGRAM  of  the  SERVICE  of  DEDICATION 

THE  HON.  WAYNE  C.  TOWNLEY,  Presiding 
MUSIC  by  the  CHILDREN  OF  JANESVILLE  and  LERNA    SCHOOLS 


Hymn   "America" 

Invocation Rev.  Marion  Hull,  Mattoon  Lions  Club 

Introduction  of  the  District  Governor  of  Lions  Clubs 

Hon.  Bryan  H.  Tivnen,  Mattoon  Lions  Club 

Address "The  Purpose  of  this  Assembly" 

Hon.  Wayne  C.  Townley 

Address "The  Basis  of  Lincoln's  Greatness" 

Hon.  Frank  O.  Lowden 

Hymn    "Illinois" 

Address "The  Parents  of  Abraham  Lincoln" 

Rev.  William  E.  Barton 

The  Presentation  of  the  Monument 

Judge  John  F.  Garner 

The  Acceptance  of  the  Monument Mrs.  Susan  D.  Baker 

The  Unveiling-  of  the  Monument 

Dr.  S.  A.  Campbell,  Mattoon  Post  No.  404,  G.  A.  R. 

The  Benediction Rev.  J.  G.  Reynolds,  Shiloh  Church 


Sarah   Bush   Lincoln 

This  picture  used  through  the  courtesy  of  Frederick  H. 

Meserve,  New  York  City 

So  far  as  known,  no  picture  of  Thomas  Lincoln  was  ever  made 


INTRODUCTION 

It  has  become  a  custom,  and  a  good  one,  throughout  the  country 
to  erect  memorials  to  men  who  have  played  their  part  in  the  world's 
history  or  even  in  that  of  a  community.  One  of  the  greatest  charac- 
ters upon  the  annals  of  not  only  Illinois  but  the  entire  nation  is  that 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Monuments  have  been  erected  in  his  honor 
throughout  the  world. 

When  we  honor  these  great  lives  that  have  gone  before  us,  it 
seems  altogether  fitting  that  their  fathers  and  mothers  should  also 
be  remembered.  It  was  Lincoln  himself  who  declared,  in  substance, 
that  all  he  was  he  owed  to  his  mother. 

On  the  Indiana  division,  near  the  little  village  of  Janesville,  Coles 
County,  Illinois,  eleven  miles  south  of  Mattoon,  in  a  secluded  country 
cemetery  are  two  graves;  a  small  headstone  tells  the  passer-by  that 
in  these  graves  rest  the  remains  of  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Sarah  Bush 
Lincoln,  the  father  and  step-mother  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Thomas 
Lincoln  died  in  January,  1851,  and  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln  in  April,  1869. 
These  two  graves  in  little  Shiloh  Cemetery  have  been  practically  for- 
gotten, with  the  exception  of  a  faithful  few  in  that  vicinity  who  have 
formed  a  memorial  association  to  preserve  the  graves. 

In  the  spring  of  1923,  Wayne  C.  Townley  of  Bloomington,  Illinois, 
who  is  the  district  governor  of  the  Lions  Clubs  of  Illinois,  was  visiting 
the  Mattoon  Lions  Club,  and  while  in  the  vicinity  he  paid  a  visit  to 
this  cemetery.  Not  even  a  trail  was  marked  so  as  to  guide  visitors 
to  this  historic  place.  Mr.  Townley  called  the  attention  of  the  Mat- 
toon local  club  to  this  apparent  neglect.  The  suggestion  was  all  that 
was  necessary  to  cause  the  Mattoon  Lions  Club  to  become  active. 
The  members  instituted  a  movement  to  mark  a  trail  from  Mattoon 
to  Shiloh  Cemetery,  a  distance  of  about  fifteen  miles.  The  trail  was 
eventually  marked  by  using  an  orange  circle  in  which  were  written 
in  dark  blue  the  letters  "T.  L.  T."  (Thomas  Lincoln  Trail).  This 
mark  appears  upon  the  telephone  poles  the  entire  distance.  In  addi- 
tion, enamel  signs  about  two  by  three  feet  were  procured,  which  are 
posted  along  the  way,  directing  tourists  to  the  final  resting  place  of 
Abraham  Lincoln's  parents.  Also,  where  the  road  is  not  paved,  it  is 
now  kept  oiled. 

At  the  international  convention  of  the  Lions  Clubs  at  Atlantic  City 
in  June,  a  caucus  of  all  the  Illinois  delegates  was  called  by  District 
Governor  Townley,  and  the  matter  of  raising  funds  to  erect  a  suit- 
able memorial  over  these  two  long-neglected  graves  was  presented 
and  unanimously  indorsed  by  the  delegates.  Thereafter,  the  proposi- 
tion was  presented  to  every  club  in  the  state. 

—  (Illinois  Central  Magazine,  February,  1924.) 


Hon.  Wayne  C.  Townley 

Bloomington,  Illinois 

District  Governor  Illinois  Lions  Clubs 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  THIS  ASSEMBLY 

BY  HON.  WAYNE  C.  TOWNLEY 

We  are  here  to  dedicate  this  monument  erected  in  memory  of 
Thomas  and  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln,  the  father  and  step-mother  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

Illinois  may  well  recall  its  contribution  to  that  great  life. 

Here,  in  this  State,  were  developed  those  talents  which  produced- 
that  great  debater — the  superior  of  a  Stephen  A.  Douglas: 

Here  was  developed  that  orator  whose  speeches  are  classed  with 
the  gems  of  the  ages : 

Here  was  inspired  that  patriot — ready  to  hold  the  horse  of  a  vain 
McClellan,  willing  to  bear  the  ridicule  of  a  mistaken  Greeley,  satis- 
fied to  ignore  the  false  clamor  of  a  misguided  minority;  that  this 
nation,  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  might  live: 

Here  he  gave  his  "lost  speech" — which  pointed  to  his  leadership  in 
the  Republican  Party  and  paved  his  way  to  the  Presidency : 

Here  was  developed  from  the  rough,  unlettered,  unknown  back- 
woodsman— the  world's  greatest  citizen : 

Here  was  the  training  that  gave  to  us  the  patient,  wise,  just, 
martyred  leader  who  loved  his  country  more  than  himself;  his  honor 
more  than  his  station;    his  ideals  more  than  his  office: 

And  through  it  all  was  the  influence  of  the  father  and  step- 
mother— intangible  but  powerful :  With  his  struggles  came  the 
knowledge  of  the  value  of  a  good  heredity  through  the  one  and  the 
help  of  environment  through  the  other.     He  honored  both. 

We  have  come  to  this  little  country  churchyard  to  pay  tribute  by 
the  dedication  of  this  granite,  to  these  "whose  humble  but  worthy 
home  gave  to  the  world  Abraham  Lincoln."  With  this  privilege 
comes  the  opportunity  of  saying  these  few  words  of  long  delayed 
appreciation. 

These  two  belonged  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  "He  belongs  to  the 
ages." 


Hon.  Frank  O.  Lowden 
Oregon,  Illinois 

Former  Governor  of  Illinois 

Honorary  Member  of  Lions  Clubs  of  Illinois,  Affiliated 
with  the  Blooming-ton  Club 


THE  BASIS  OF  LINCOLN'S  GREATNESS 

BY  GOVERNOR  FRANK  O.  LOWDEN 

Man  always  delights  to  invest  his  heroes  with  a  mysterious  origin. 
He  loves  contrast  and  finds  joy  in  a  paradox.  He  likes  to  set  oppo- 
site the  loftiest  height  which  his  hero  has  reached  the  humblest  and 
least  promising  youth  which  he  can  assign  to  him.  This  suits  man's 
sense  of  the  dramatic.  And  so  it  came  about  that  in  the  years  fol- 
lowing Abraham  Lincoln's  martyrdom  many  myths  grew  up  about 
his  ancestry,  his  early  life,  and  even  his  own  character  and  standing 
in  the  several  communities  in  which  he  lived. 

The  truth  about  all  these  things  is  just  now  beginning  to  appear. 
We  are  fortunate  today  in  having  with  us  William  E.  Barton,  whose 
tireless  researches  have  done  much  to  dispel  the  mists  that  have  gath- 
ered about  Abraham  Lincoln's  early  life.  Ida  M.  Tarbell  has  re- 
cently written  a  book  called,  "In  the  Footsteps  of  the  Lincolns," 
which  dispels  many  of  the  illusions  surrounding  Lincoln's  forebears. 
We  now  know  that  the  family  from  which  he  came  had  borne  an 
honorable  part  in  the  history  of  America  for  almost  three  hundred 
years.  We  now  see  Thomas  Lincoln,  not  as  a  so-called  "poor  white," 
a  phrase  which  more  often  misleads  than  defines,  but  rather  as  a 
member  of  that  vanguard  of  hardy  pioneers  which  builded  the  mighty 
states  west  of  the  Allegheny  mountains.  We  find  too,  in  the  light 
of  modern  research,  that  the  family  of  Hanks  likewise  had  a  long 
and  honorable  record  in  the  pioneer  upbuilding. 

Miss  Tarbell  says : 

"But  what  is  a  'poor  white'?  Poor  whites  are  the  backwash, 
not  the  vanguard  of  the  pioneer  army.  In  every  onward  move- 
ment into  the  wilderness  there  were  those  who,  through  bodily 
weakness,  fear,  discouragement,  misfortune,  dropped  by  the  way. 
They  were  like  soldiers,  wounded  or  gassed  in  the  front  line 
trench  beyond  any  future  hope  of  active  service.  Without  them 
the  pioneer  army  could  not  have  advanced  as  it  did.  They  were 
part  of  the  sacrifice  that  opening  the  new  continent  demanded. 

Now  the  Lincolns  and  Hankses  were  of  neither  class.  They 
moved  ahead  into  the  very  heart  of  the  Kentucky  battle  ground, 
and  there  planted  themselves  and  withstood  the  perils  and  hard- 
ships of  the  early  period.  Moreover,  as  we  shall  see,  the  Hankses, 
like  the  Lincolns,  kept  the  pioneer  spirit.  They  pushed  ahead 
with  the  vanguard  which  went  later  into  Indiana  and  Illinois. 
They  were  never  lagcards  behind,  that  is,  they  never  were  of 
the  'poor  white'  class." 


That  Thomas  Lincoln  and  his  family  endured  hardships  and  what 
would  now  seem  severe  privation  no  one  will  deny.  That  was  the 
common  lot  of  the  pioneer,  and  the  hardships  and  the  privations  of 
the  Lincoln  family  were  no  exception.  It  is  true  that  they  lived  in 
a  simple  little  log  house  without  the  conveniences  to  which  we  are 
now  accustomed.  That  too  was  the  common  lot  of  the  pioneer.  I 
myself  for  a  time  lived  in  one  of  these  little  log  homes.  I  cannot 
recall  though  that  we  ever  suffered  loss  of  self-respect  or  ever  felt 
any  sense  of  inferiority  from  that  circumstance.  And  then  there  were 
compensations  to  the  pioneer.  The  wild  beauty  of  a  new  and  virgin 
land,  the  sense  of  freedom  and  adventure  which  always  accompanied 
the  pioneer,  made  life  far  richer  than  we  are  likely  to  suppose. 

The  Lincolns  were  poor,  as  nearly  all  the  pioneers  in  the  migration 
from  the  East  were  poor.  But  it  was  not  the  kind  of  poverty  that 
corrodes  or  breaks  the  spirit.  In  the  abundance  of  wild  game,  in  the 
fruitfulness  of  the  virgin  soil,  there  was  no  place  for  the  spectre  of 
starvation.  The  poverty  of  these  pioneers  was  that  kind  of  poverty  in 
which  sturdy  independence  thrived. 

It  is  very  fitting,  therefore,  I  think,  to  mark  the  grave  and  honor 
the  memory  of  this  pioneer  who  was  the  father  of  him  whom  Lowell 
called  "the  first  American."  It  is  also  fitting  at  the  same  time  to  do 
honor  to  the  memory  of  Sarah  Bush  Johnson  Lincoln,  the  second 
mother  of  the  great  Emancipator,  who  sleeps  here  by  the  side  of  the 
pioneer  father.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  fortunate  indeed,  that  in  his 
childhood  and  young  manhood  he  should  have  come  under  the  influ- 
ence and  been  enfolded  by  the  love  of  Nancy  Lincoln  and  Sarah 
Bush  Lincoln.  He  himself,  in  words  that  will  never  die,  confessed 
his  infinite  debt  of  gratitude  to  these  two. 

In  this  presence  and  on  this  occasion,  one  would  be  remiss  if  he 
did  not  seek  to  draw  some  lessons  from  the  life  of  the  illustrious 
son  of  Thomas  Lincoln. 

Principles  rather  than  policies  appealed  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  All 
great  questions  seemed  to  him  to  involve  some  moral  quality.  It  was 
his  habit,  therefore,  to  resolve  them  into  their  simple  fundamentals. 
It  thus  happens  that  many  of  his  words  are  as  apt  and  forceful  today 
as  when  they  were  first  spoken  by  him.  In  harmony  with  this  thought 
I  shall  try  to  put  before  you  some  of  the  things  for  which  Lincoln 
stood  which  directly  apply,  as  it  seems  to  me,  to  the  grave  problems 
with  which  we  and  all  the  world  with  us  are  confronted  now. 

On  February  12,  1809,  two  men  were  born.  They  have  been  dust 
for  many  years.  Yet  each  played  a  large  part  in  the  great  world  war 
that  recently  reached  its  close.  These  men  were  Abraham  Lincoln 
and  Charles  Darwin.  Darwin  devoted  his  life  to  the  study  of  material 
things.  In  that  world  in  which  he  lived  he  found  heredity  and  en- 
vironment to  be  the  controlling  facts.  Out  of  his  study  came  the 
doctrine  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.    The  savants  of  Germany  made 

10 


that  doctrine  the  cornerstone  of  a  new  philosophy  which  they  called 
Kultur. 

According  to  Kultur,  the  world  belonged  to  the  strong  and  to  the 
strong  alone.  Might  was  right  and  the  world  was  in  the  relentless 
grip  of  physical  force.  Justice,  gentleness,  righteousness,  were  words 
invented  by  the  weak  to  protect  themselves  against  the  strong.  To 
pity  a  foe  was  weakness,  to  spare  him  was  a  crime.  Kultur  was  a 
denial  of  the  moral  law;  was  a  blind  faith  in  the  power  of  the  laws 
of  life  which  Darwin  had  declared.  The  fatal  defect  in  Kultur  was 
that  it  assumed  that  Darwin's  theory  covered  the  entire  philosophy 
of  life.  This  was  not  so.  He  was  accounting  only  for  the  material 
universe.  He  never  denied  so  far  as  I  have  discovered  that  there  was 
a  larger  world — the  moral  and  spiritual  world.  Kultur  overlooked 
this  and  took  its  fatal  plunge. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  in  a  cabin  in  Kentucky.  If  heredity 
and  environment  had  been  all  there  was  in  human  life  we  never 
should  have  heard  his  name.  While  Darwin  delved  in  rocks  to  find 
vanished  forms  of  life,  Lincoln  studied  man.  By  them  his  sympathies 
were  quickened  ;  the  moral  depths  of  his  being  were  stirred;  the 
right  and  wrong  of  human  conduct  engaged  his  deepest  thought.  Just 
as  the  laws  of  physical  being  unfolded  under  the  eye  of  the  great 
scientist,  so  the  laws  of  the  moral  universe  disclosed  themselves  to 
the  great  man.  Lincoln  had  never  read  The  Origin  of  Species,  but 
he  knew  that  under  the  moral  law  an  injury  inflicted  upon  an  inferior 
by  a  superior  man  reacts  upon  himself.    He  said: 

"This  is  a  world  of  compensation  and  he  who  would  be  no 
slave  must  consent  to  have  no  slave.  And  those  who  deny  free- 
dom to  others  deserve  it  not  for  themselves,  and  under  a  just  God 
cannot  long  retain  it." 

Unconsciously  Lincoln  became  the  interpreter  of  the  moral  laws 
of  society  just  as  Darwin  became  the  interpreter  of  the  physical  laws 
of  life.  Therefore  Lincoln  asserted  that  all  men  had  the  inalienable 
right  to  "life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  Lincoln  was  as 
much  at  home  amidst  the  play  of  moral  and  spiritual  forces  as  was 
Darwin  in  the  realm  of  mere  matter.  It  was  this  moral  grandeur  to 
which  Lincoln  attained  that  made  him  the  wisest  of  all  men.  For,  after 
all,  wisdom  is  largely  a  product  of  character.  Men  may  be  intellectu- 
ally brilliant,  indeed  brilliant  beyond  compare,  and  yet  be  utterly  lack- 
ing in  wisdom.  Where  other  men  had  views,  Lincoln  had  convictions. 
Convictions  come  from  the  heart  and  not  from  the  brain.  And  so 
whenever  there  arises  a  question  of  human  liberty  or  of  human  rights, 
one  may  turn  to  Lincoln  for  an  answer  without  inquiring  as  to  the 
particular  year  in  which  he  wrote.  There  is  a  perfect  harmony  run- 
ning through  all  his  utterances. 

It  is  not  strange  that  as  Kultur  was  partially  founded  upon  the 
doctrine  of  Darwin,  so  the  Allies  in  the  great  war  found  their  chief 

11 


inspiration  in  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  For  this  great  contest  was 
a  war  between  the  material  forces  of  the  world  upon  the  one  hand 
and  the  spiritual  forces  upon  the  other.  Where  the  Central  Empires 
found  comfort  in  The  Origin  of  Species,  the  statesmen  of  England 
and  France,  and  of  Italy  and  the  United  States,  read  the  Gettysburg- 
speech  and  the  Second  Inaugural  and  thereby  renewed  their  faith  and 
refreshed  their  courage. 

We  have  known  ever  since  Lincoln's  death  that  he  was  America's 
most  perfect  product,  but  we  did  not  learn  how  much  he  meant  to 
all  the  world  until  the  great  war  came  and  civilization  was  threatened 
on  every  front.  Then  it  was  that  in  France  or  England  or  wherever 
the  torch  of  liberty  still  burned  and  men  were  fighting  for  righteous- 
ness with  their  backs  to  the  wall — then  it  was  that  the  whole  world 
turned  to  the  words  of  Lincoln.  Whether  it  was  Lloyd  George  in 
the  Parliament  of  England  or  Clemenceau  in  France,  or  wherever 
it  might  be,  it  was  Lincoln's  words  that  gave  the  highest  inspiration  to 
the  forces  fighting  the  battles  of  civilization.  And  so  in  our  own 
country  Lincoln  loomed  a  mightier  figure  than  ever  before.  During 
the  most  depressing  period  of  the  war,  when  our  Allies  were  becom- 
ing war  weary,  whenever  a  mission  from  foreign  lands  visited  Amer- 
ica either  to  stimulate  our  activities  or  to  renew  their  own  courage, 
that  mission  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Lincoln's  tomb.  I  was  in  Spring- 
field when  the  French  mission  headed  by  Marshal  Joffre  visited  that 
city.  I  drove  with  the  great  French  soldier,  who  held  the  enemy  at 
bay  in  the  first  Battle  of  the  Marne,  to  the  cemetery  where  lies 
Lincoln's  dust.  As  I  looked  at  the  old  hero  and  saw  his  streaming 
eyes  and  his  trembling  hands  as  he  laid  his  tribute  of  blossoms  upon 
Lincoln's  bier,  I  thought  I  could  see  that  he  in  that  sacred  presence 
had  resolved  anew  "They  shall  not  pass." 

Lincoln  truly  served  mankind  because  he  loved  mankind.  Genuine 
service  must  always  spring  from  the  promptings  of  the  heart,  and  is 
never  a  product  of  the  will  alone.    It  was  the  poet  Lowell  who  said: 

"How  beautiful  to  see 
Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  indeed, 
Who  loved  his  charge,  but  never  loved  to  lead." 

And  so  he  couldn't  help  giving  his  tenderest  thought  to  the  work- 
ing man.  He  cared  for  him  because  he  cared  for  all  men.  Every- 
one is  familiar  with  his  significant  saying  that  the  Lord  loves  plain 
people  because  He  made  no  many  of  them. 

With  reference  to  the  age  old  question  of  labor  and  capital,  he 
declared : 

"Labor  is  prior  to  and  independent  of  capital.  Capital  is  only 
the  fruit  of  labor  and  could  never  have  existed  if  labor  had  not 
first  existed.  Labor  is  the  superior  of  capital,  and  deserves  much 
the  highest  consideration." 

12 


That  is  but  another  way  of  saying  that  society  should  chiefly  con- 
cern itself  with  the  lot  in  life  of  the  average  man.  And  this  is  but 
saying,  in  another  form,  that  Lincoln  was  a  lover  of  humanity.  The 
Declaration  of  Independence,  to  which  again  and  again  he  turned  in 
his  thinking,  included  not  only  the  right  to  life  and  liberty,  but  the 
right  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness  as  well.  And  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  though  Lincoln  emphasized  the  right  to  liberty — for  slavery  was 
the  dominant  issue  at  the  time — he  never  referred  to  the  Declaration, 
so  far  as  I  can  find,  without  coupling  with  the  right  to  liberty  the 
right  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Life  means  much;  liberty  means 
much;  but  both  fail  unless  life  can  be  lived  and  liberty  enjoyed  under 
conditions  of  well-being.  Any  form  of  government  is  but  a  means 
to  an  end,  and  that  end  is  the  happiness  of  the  individual. 

I  am  sure  that  in  our  almost  a  century  and  a  half  of  existence, 
since  that  great  day  of  Independence,  more  men  have  lived  happy 
lives  in  our  country  and  under  our  form  of  government  than  in  any 
other  in  all  the  history  of  the  world.  But  the  happiness  and  well- 
being  of  the  average  man  and  woman  must  be  steadily  advanced  if 
our  institutions  are  to  endure.  The  economists  may  explain,  the 
statesmen  may  excuse  our  failure  to  accomplish  this,  but  the  fact 
remains  that  our  civilization  will  fail  if  the  well-being  of  the  men 
and  women  and  children  of  America  shall  not  continuously  improve. 

This  cannot  be,  however,  in  my  opinion,  if  we  destroy  private  in- 
itiative in  industry.  For  every  invention,  for  every  improved  process 
made  under  the  stimulus  of  private  initiative,  though  the  inventor 
may  profit,  society  profits  immeasurably  more.  A  steadily  reducing 
amount  of  human  labor  is  all  the  time  required  to  produce  the  neces- 
sities of  life.  If  we  shall  abandon  the  ancient  landmarks  and  sub- 
stitute for  private  initiative  and  private  industry  a  communistic  state, 
the  progress  of  mankind  will  be  arrested  and  retrogression  will  set 
in.    Again  Lincoln  speaks  to  us.    It  is  a  message  for  today : 

"The  legitimate  object  of  government  is  to  do  for  a  com- 
munity of  people  whatever  they  need  to  have  done  but  cannot 
do  at  all  or  cannot  so  well  do  for  themselves  in  their  separate 
and  individual  capacities.  In  all  that  the  people  can  individually 
do  as  well  for  themselves,  government  ought  not  to  interfere." 

He  also  warns  us : 

"Let  not  him  who  is  houseless  pull  down  the  house  of  an- 
other, but  let  him  labor  diligently  and  build  one  for  himself,  thus 
by  example  assuring  that  his  own  shall  be  safe  from  violence 
when  built." 

Lincoln's  love  of  the  Union  was  the  guiding  motive  and  the 
supreme  passion  of  his  life.  He  hated  slavery,  but  he  loved  the 
Constitution  more. 

African  slavery  for  years  had  been  the  great  problem  of  the 
American  people.     Phillips  and  Garrison  had  lashed  the  conscience  of 

13 


the  North  for  permitting  this  national  sin.  The  Union  had  long  been 
held  together  by  compromise.  Lincoln  saw  that  though  there  might 
be  compromise  on  expedients  there  never  could  be  compromise  over 
principles.     He  announced, 

"A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.     I  believe  that 

this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half 

free." 

And  yet  when  asked  for  his  solution  of  the  problem  he  was  silent. 
He  knew  only  that  the  law  must  be  maintained,  whether  it  guaranteed 
the  integrity  of  the  federal  union  or  slavery.  Phillips  declared  that 
the  constitution  was  a  "union  with  death  and  compact  with  hell." 
Lincoln  urged  always  that  the  constitution  must  be  absolutely  upheld 
both  when  it  made  for  freedom  and  for  slavery. 

In  his  debate  with  Douglas,  he  said,  in  regard  to  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law: 

"I  have  never  hesitated  to  say,  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say, 
that  I  think  under  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  the  peo- 
ple of  the  Southern  states  are  entitled  to  a  Congressional  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law." 

Then  came  John  Brown,  that  "noble  suicide."  But  Lincoln  could 
not  approve  of  Harper's  Ferry.  There  was  no  warrant  for  it  un- 
der the  law. 

Lincoln  was  nominated  for  President  over  the  protests  of  the  ex- 
tremists. Phillips  published  an  article  entitled,  "Abraham  Lincoln, 
the  Slave  Hound  of  Illinois."  In  it  he  boasted :  "We  gibbet  a  North- 
ern hound  today,  side  by  side  with  the  infamous  Mason  of  Virginia." 
But  Lincoln  was  elected.  Maligned  by  the  South,  distrusted  by  the 
Abolitionists  of  the  North,  the  months  that  intervened  between  his 
election  and  his  inauguration  were  the  hardest  of  his  life.  Sad,  de- 
pressed and  impotent,  he  quietly  waited  at  Springfield,  while  all  the 
forces  opposed  to  his  most  cherished  principle,  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  were  mustering  both  South  and  North.  He  hated  slavery 
but  he  loved  the  constitution.  The  federal  union  and  its  mission  were 
the  supreme  passion  and  sublime  faith  of  his  life.  With  hands  tied,  he 
beheld  the  South,  in  the  interests  of  slavery,  and  a  large  portion  of  the 
North,  in  the  interests  of  peace,  advocate  a  separation  of  the  two.  He 
witnessed  the  spectacle  of  Cabinet  ministers  conniving  at  secession. 
Sustained  only  by  an  abiding  faith,  he  waited  gloomily  but  steadfastly 
for  the  day  when  he  should  take  command.  Tardily  the  hour  arrived. 
It  was  almost,  not  quite,  too  late. 

It  was  impossible  for  Lincoln  as  President  to  foresee  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  slaves  because  the  constitution  protected  slavery.  He 
could  only  know  that  he  had  but  one  duty,  and  sadly  and  solitarily  he 
set  about  that  duty.  In  very  truth,  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are  visited 
upon  the  children.    Slavery  was  a  sin  but  it  was  the  sin  of  the  fathers. 

14 


Lincoln  bowed  his  great  shoulders  to  bear  this  sin.     In  his  first  in- 
augural address  he  said : 

"I  have  no  purpose  directly  or  indirectly  to  interfere  with  the 
institution  of  slavery  in  the  states  where  it  exists.  I  believe  I 
have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so  and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do  so." 

Then  there  followed  Bull  Run,  Shiloh,  Antietam — these  battles 
were  all  fought,  not  for  the  slave  but  for  the  Union.  If  any  had  been 
decisive  for  the  Union  slavery  would  have  remained.  But  events  are 
mightier  than  men.  It  was  destined  that  slavery  should  perish  forever 
from  this  continent.  So  the  South  must  fight  so  well  that  the  North 
should  be  compelled  for  its  own  preservation  to  free  the  slave.  Lee 
was  fighting  for  humanity,  though  he  knew  it  not.  Our  Canadian 
brethren  in  our  own  Revolutionary  war  seemed  to  lose  battles  to  the 
colonial  forces.  Though  they  could  not  see  this,  those  disasters  were 
their  gain.  The  freedom  of  the  English  colonies  was  won  for  them 
by  the  American  rebels  in  that  great  war.  England  learned  a  new 
colonial  policy  at  the  surrender  of  Yorktown,  and  our  then  Canadian 
foes  became  beneficiaries  of  Washington's  heroic  deeds.  So,  the 
noblest  sons  of  the  South  now  admit  that  Lincoln  was  the  best  friend 
they  ever  had.  In  very  truth,  "they  are  victors  who  have  been  van- 
quished by  the  right." 

Strange  concatenation  of  events  !  Phillips,  the  inspired  abolition- 
ist, urging  that  the  South  be  permitted  to  go;  Greeley,  the  powerful 
editor,  against  a  war  of  coercion;  Lincoln,  insisting  that  he  was 
without  power  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  South ;  Lee,  main- 
taining with  force  of  arms  the  right  to  secession  in  the  interest  of 
slavery — yet  out  of  it  all  comes  the  freedom  of  four  million  slaves. 
This  glorious  but  unseen  result  was  the  fruit  of  Lincoln's  perform- 
ance of  the  duty  of  the  hour. 

When  the  emancipation  proclamation  was  resolved  upon,  Lincoln 
solemnly  made  this  confession  to  his  cabinet: 

"When  the  rebel  army  was  at  Frederick,  I  determined,  as  soon 
as  it  should  be  driven  out  of  Maryland,  to  issue  a  proclamation 
of  emancipation,  such  as  I  thought  most  likely  to  be  useful.  I 
said  nothing  to  anyone;  but  I  made  the  promise  to  myself  and — 
to  my  Maker.  The  rebel  army  is  now  driven  out,  and  I  am  going 
to  fulfill  that  promise." 

And  so  today,  to  the  many  who  believe  that  constitutional  man- 
dates can  be  easily  laid  aside  and  picked  up  again  when  the  need  is 
past,  to  all  who  believe  that  they  are  wiser  than  the  men  who  framed 
that  constitution  and  the  form  of  government  under  which  they  live, 
I  commend  with  all  my  heart  the  words  and  the  deeds  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

All  through  his  writings  runs  the  thought  too  that  our  cause  was 
the  cause  of  humanity.     In  his  speech  at  Gettysburg  he  did  not  say: 

15 


"Let  us  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in 
vain ;  that  this  Nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of 
freedom,  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for 
the  people,  shall  not  perish"  from  the  United  States  but  "from 
the  earth." 

His  vision  circled  all  the  globe.  His  great  heart  was  beating  in 
sympathy  with  mankind  everywhere. 

How  well  he  wrought  I  doubt  if  even  he  himself  could  fully  under- 
stand. The  American  Republic  has  been  an  inspiration  to  the  lovers 
of  liberty  everywhere.  The  Republic,  during  its  almost  a  century  and 
a  half  of  existence,  has  had  a  mighty  influence  throughout  the  world. 
Its  power  has  come  from  its  success  as  a  self-governing  nation.  Our 
influence  has  run  around  the  globe  because  we  have  contented  our- 
selves with  being  an  exemplar  to,  rather  than  a  ruler  of,  mankind. 

Lincoln  did  preserve  the  Union  and  free  the  slaves.  That  Nation 
which  he  saved  had  grown  so  powerful  in  a  little  more  than  fifty 
years  that  it  was  able,  in  the  supreme  crisis  of  civilization,  to  turn 
the  tide  of  the  great  world  conflict.  And  as  he  prayed,  so  now 
may  we  have  faith  to  believe  that  "government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

And  now  the  most  important  of  all  his  precious  teachings.  And 
that  is  that  no  nation  can  endure  which  denies  its  dependence  upon 
God.  We  need  to  recognize  this  truth  as  never  before  in  all  our 
history.  Within  the  last  few  years  we  have  had  before  our  very 
eyes  two  attempts  to  replace  a  civilization  founded  upon  righteous- 
ness, upon  moral  and  spiritual  concepts,  with  a  purely  materialistic 
and  Godless  structure.  First,  under  the  leadership  of  their  philoso- 
phers Germany  evolved  the  idea  that  the  state  could  do  no  wrong. 
She  had  been  marvelous  in  her  achievements  during  the  year  which 
had  preceded  the  war;  she  had  shown  an  efficiency  which  challenged 
the  admiration  of  the  world;  she  had  come  to  think  that  she  had  so 
far  conquered  matter  in  all  its  forms  that  she  could  rest  her  future 
upon  a  material  base  alone.  And  we  know  the  result.  We  saw  that 
no  matter  how  well  disciplined  her  legions,  when  those  legions  hurled 
themselves  against  less  perfectly  disciplined  legions — moved  and  sus- 
tained, however,  by  a  deep  moral  purpose — we  saw  her  splendid 
legions  dashed  to  pieces.  And  again  at  almost  the  same  time  another 
effort  was  made  to  build  a  civilization  upon  material  concepts  alone. 
This  time  it  was  in  Russia  that  the  effort  was  made.  There  they 
had  taken  as  a  basis  for  their  new  philosophy  of  government  the 
principles  of  Karl  Marx,  which  sought  to  resolve  all  things  into  ma- 
terial terms.  Churches  dismantled;  the  clergy  were  driven  from  the 
altar;  and  a  civilization  based  upon  purely  material  concepts  was  the 
thing  attempted.  The  world  knows  the  result.  It  now  sees  that  it 
is  just  as  impossible  to  rest  a  civilization  upon  a  material  base  as 
it  is  upon  the  might  of  the  sword  alone. 

16 


There  is  this  in  common  between  the  two  attempts,  the  attempt 
of  the  German  Militarists  and  the  attempt  of  the  Bolshevists,  and 
that  is  that  each  sought  to  eliminate  all  spiritual  forces  and  all  moral 
qualities  from  their  respective  schemes.  And  therefore  it  never 
seemed  to  me  strange  that  the  Bolshevists,  when  they  came  into  pos- 
session of  Russia,  should  meet  the  ambassadors  of  Militarism  at 
Brest-Litovak  upon  equal  terms  and  there  frame  a  treaty  of  peace. 
Isn't  it  strange  that  with  these  two  colossal  failures  staring  us  in 
the  face  we  should  need  to  be  reminded  by  Lincoln  that  "it  is  the 
duty  of  nations  as  well  as  of  men  to  own  their  dependence  upon  the 
overruling  power  of  God?"  Let  me  read  you  part  of  the  Fast  Day 
Proclamation  which  Lincoln  issued  in  the  darkest  days  of  the  war: 

"We  have  been  the  recipients  of  the  choicest  bounties  of 
Heaven.  We  have  been  preserved,  these  many  years,  in  peace 
and  prosperity.  We  have  grown  in  numbers,  wealth  and  power 
as  no  other  nation  has  ever  grown;  but  we  have  forgotten  God. 
We  have  forgotten  the  gracious  hand  which  preserved  us  in 
peace,  and  multiplied  and  enriched  and  strengthened  us ;  and  we 
have  vainly  imagined,  in  the  deceitfulness  of  our  hearts,  that  all 
these  blessings  were  produced  by  some  superior  wisdom  and 
virtue  of  our  own.  Intoxicated  with  unbroken  success,  we  have 
become  too  self-sufficient  to  feel  the  necessity  of  redeeming  and 
preserving  grace,  too  proud  to  pray  to  God  that  made  us : 

"It  behooves  us  then  to  humble  ourselves  before  the  offended 
Power,  to  confess  our  national  sins,  and  to  pray  for  clemency 
and  forgiveness. 

"All  this  being  done  in  sincerity  and  truth,  let  us  then  rest 
humbly  in  the  hope  authorized  by  the  divine  teachings,  that  the 
united  cry  of  the  nation  will  be  heard  on  high,  and  answered  with 
blessings  no  less  than  the  pardon  of  our  national  sins  and  the 
restoration  of  our  now  divided  and  suffering  country  to  its  for- 
mer happy  condition  of  unity  and  peace." 

We  are  confronted  with  grave  and  perplexing  problems.  Civiliza- 
tion itself  seems  to  some  hanging  in  the  balance.  The  world  is  drift- 
ing whither  no  man  knows.  How  quickly  all  this  would  change  if 
these  words  of  Lincoln  could  only  enter  and  hold  the  heart  of  the 
world  in  these  troublous  times. 

The  cause  of  democracy  is  the  cause  of  humanity.  Democracy 
concerns  itself  with  the  welfare  of  the  average  man.  Lincoln  was 
its  finest  product.  In  life  he  was  its  noblest  champion.  In  death  he 
became  its  saint.  His  tomb  is  now  its  shrine.  His  country's  cause 
for  which  he  lived  and  died  has  now  become  the  cause  of  all  the 
world.  It  is  more  than  a  half  century  since  his  countrymen,  with 
reverent  hands,  bore  him  to  his  grave.  And  still  his  pitiless  logic  for 
the  right,  his  serene  faith  in  God  and  man,  are  the  sword  and  shield 
with  which  democracy,  humanity  and  righteousness  everywhere  op- 
pose their  foes. 

17 


Rev.  William  E.  Barton,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Oak  Park,  Illinois 

Honorary  Member  Oak  Park  Club 


18 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AND  HIS  PARENTS 

BY  REV.  WILLIAM  E.  BARTON 

We  have  assembled  to  pay  a  tribute  of  honor  and  respect  to  the 
memory  of  a  very  humble  man  and  woman.  Large  as  is  the  com- 
pany here  convened,  it  is  the  minutest  possible  fraction  of  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  constitute  in  reality  the  assembly  of  this  occasion. 
An  event  of  this  character,  relating  so  intimately  to  the  life  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  cannot  occur  in  any  remotest  spot  in  America  and  not 
attract  the  attention  of  the  whole  country.  We  are  assembled  in  a 
place  remote  from  the  railway,  and  distant  from  any  of  the  more 
populous  cities,  but  this  large  company  of  those  actually  present  serves 
to  remind  us  of  the  interest  of  the  many  thousands  of  others  focused 
this  day  upon  this  quiet  spot. 

We  are  gathered  in  a  country  churchyard,  attractively  situated 
on  the  high  bank  of  a  gently  flowing  stream,  amid  surroundings  at 
once  primitive  and  picturesque.  Hard  by  is  the  little  church,  and 
around  us  are  the  graves,  in  their  dates  of  occupancy  both  recent 
and  remote,  of  the  successive  generations  of  the  inhabitants  of  this 
neighborhood  who  for  a  century  have  found  repose  here.  After  life's 
fitful  fever,  if  they  knew  such  fever  in  the  quiet  of  this  community, 
they  sleep  well.  The  place  is  quiet,  dignified,  restful.  It  exhibits 
neither  the  display  nor  the  neglect,  one  of  which  is  apt  to  character- 
ize our  places  of  burial. 

Such  a  spot  as  this  held  ever  a  solemn,  an  almost  morbid,  attrac- 
tion for  Abraham  Lincoln.  After  he  was  dead,  his  widow  remem- 
bered that  a  few  weeks  previous  to  his  death,  while  he  and  she  were 
at  City  Point  with  General  Grant  before  the  final  campaign  that 
forced  the  surrender  of  Lee,  they  took  a  drive  one  day,  and  coming 
upon  a  little  country  cemetery  they  went  in  and  rested  for  a  little 
time.  The  place  seemed  to  them  so  beautiful,  so  restful,  he  said  to 
her  that  he  could  wish  that  he  and  she  might  be  buried  in  such  a  spot. 

It  was  of  such  a  churchyard,  remotely  situated  in  rural  England, 
that  Gray  wrote  his  immortal  poem,  one  line  of  which,  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  accustomed  to  say,  told  the  whole  story  of  his  life, — 

"The  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor." 

That  line  alone  stands  out  rather  too  stark  and  forbidding.  It 
reads  better  in  its  setting: 

Beneath  those  rugged  elms,  that  yew-tree's  shade, 

Where  heaves  the  turf  in  many  a  mouldering  heap. 

Each  in  his  narrow   cell  forever  laid, 

The  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet  sleep. 

19 


Let   not   Ambition  mock  their  useful  toil, 

Their   homely   joys,   their   destiny   obscure; 
Nor   Grandeur  hear  with   a  disdainful  smile 

The  short   and   simple   annals  of  the   poor. 

The  boast   of  heraldry,  the  pomp  of  power, 

And  all  that  beauty,  all  that  wealth  e'er  gave, 

Await  alike  the  inevitable  hour ; — 

The  paths  of  glory  lead  but  to  the  grave. 

Abraham  Lincoln  loved  the  noble  cadence  of  these  accurately 
measured  pentameter  lines.  He  loved  places  like  this.  He  himself 
visited  this  spot.  Where  our  feet  are  standing,  his  feet  have  stood, 
and  with  like  reason,  that  here  he  might  honor  his  father.  A  kindred 
respect  for  his  father,  then  dead,  and  for  his  step-mother,  then  living 
three  and  one-half  miles  from  here,  and  now  buried  here  beside  her 
husband,  brought  Lincoln  here,  in  February,  1861,  that  before  leaving 
for  his  inaugural  as  President  he  might  pay  his  respect  to  the  two 
people  whose  dust  is  buried  beneath  this  stone,  Thomas  Lincoln  and 
his  second  wife,  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln.  We  pay  our  tribute  to  this 
couple  today,  and  to  the  first  wife  of  Thomas  Lincoln,  Nancy  Hanks 
Lincoln,  who  lies  buried  in  Spencer  County,  Indiana. 

Let  us  first  record  "the  short  and  simple  annals"  of  these  three 
people,  the  father,  the  mother  and  the  step-mother  of  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

Thomas  Lincoln  was  born  on  Linville  Creek,  in  that  part  of 
Augusta  which  is  now  Rockingham  County,  Virginia,  January  6,  1778. 
His  father.  Abraham,  was  a  captain  in  the  militia  and  his  name  ap- 
pears with  that  title  in  the  Augusta  County  records  for  1777  and  the 
Rockingham  County  records  for  1779.  Abraham  Lincoln  married, 
not  Mary  Shipley,  as  is  claimed  in  many  books,  but  Bathsheba  Her- 
ring, the  marriage  license  bearing  date  of  June  9,  1770.  Abraham 
Lincoln  married  but  once,  and  not  twice,  as  is  often  asserted,  and  his 
widow  survived  him  many  years.  The  family  migrated  to  Kentucky 
about  1782,  and  Abraham  was  killed  by  Indians,  not  in  1784,  as  is 
usually  stated,  but  in  May,  1786.  Thomas  Lincoln,  a  lad  of  eight, 
saw  his  father  murdered,  and  witnessed  also  the  swift  revenge  of 
his  older  brother  Mordecai,  a  lad  of  fourteen,  who  took  careful  aim 
through  a  crack  in  the  log  wall  of  the  cabin,  and  shot  the  Indian 
who  had  killed  his  father.  This  tragedy  occurred,  not  where  Louis- 
ville now  stands,  nor  in  Washington  or  Hardin  County,  though  all 
these  sites  have  been  shown  to  me  as  those  where  the  pioneer  Lin- 
coln was  killed.  He  was  killed  on  Long  Run  of  Floyd's  Fork,  and 
his  unmarked  grave  is  probably  within  the  inclosure  of  a  little  church- 
yard even  more  primitive  than  that  in  which  we  are  assembled,  that 
of  the  Long  Run  Baptist  Church,  which  stands  upon  land  owned  by 
the  murdered  man,  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  father  of  Thomas.  Ac- 
companied by  other  members  of  the  Filson  Club  of  Louisville,  I  have 
identified  the  Lincoln  farm  on  Long  Run,  and  the  Lincoln  spring  and 

20 


the  site  of  the  Lincoln  home,  and  have  made  what  I  regard  as  a  close 
approach  to  proof  of  the  location  of  the  pioneer  Lincoln's  grave.  It 
is  not  likely  that  any  future  investigation  will  he  more  thorough  or 
will  greatly  modify  this  conclusion.  Thomas  Lincoln's  father  sleeps 
in  a  little  cemetery  in  Jefferson  County,  Kentucky,  near  to  the  Shelby 
County  line,  and  on  the  brow  of  an  elevation  overlooking  the  stream — 
a  situation  not  unlike  that  of  our  own  surroundings  this  very  hour, 
here  in  Illinois. 

Thomas  was  the  youngest  of  three  sons  of  Abraham  and  Bath- 
sheba  Lincoln,  his  brothers  being  named  Mordecai  and  Josiah.  He 
had  also  one  older  sister  Mary,  and  a  sister  two  years  younger  than 
himself,  Nancy,  born  in  Virginia,  March  25,  1780.  She  married  Wil- 
liam Brumfield,  in  1801,  her  mother,  Bathsheba,  being  alive  and  sign- 
ing the  required  document  consenting  to  the  marriage.  Bathsheba 
later  lived  with  this  daughter,  Nancy,  on  Mill  Creek,  in  Hardin 
County,  and  is  buried  beside  her.  The  grave  of  Bathsheba  is  not 
marked,  and  the  exact  date  of  her  death  is  not  known,  but  Nancy's 
grave  has  a  tombstone  which  states  that  she  departed  this  life  at 
7  o'clock,  October  9,  1845,  aged  65  years,  6  months  and  14  days. 

Thomas  Lincoln,  the  youngest  son  of  these  two  pioneers,  Abra- 
ham and  Bathsheba,  removed  from  Kentucky  to  Indiana  in  the 
autumn  of  1816,  and  to  Macon  County,  Illinois,  in  the  spring  of 
1830.  He  came  to  Goose  Nest  Prairie,  three  and  one-half  miles  from 
this  spot,  in  1832,  and  lived  there  until  his  death,  January  17,  1851. 

His  first  wife  was  Nancy  Hanks,  who  was  born  in  Virginia  about 
1784.  The  exact  date  of  her  birth  is  unknown,  and  the  books  that 
profess  to  give  it  precisely  base  their  declarations  on  no  documentary 
proof.  The  Hanks  family  in  that  period  kept  no  family  records. 
She  was  approaching  her  twenty-third  birthday  when,  on  June  12, 
1806,  she  married  Thomas  Lincoln.  She  was  a  tall,  slender,  and 
rather  frail  woman,  of  dark  complexion,  and  a  high  forehead.  From 
her,  as  he  believed,  her  son  Abraham  inherited  some  of  his  best 
traits.  She  was  a  virtuous  and  worthy  woman,  and  her  son  honored 
her  memory.  She  died  near  Gentryville,  Indiana,  October  5,  1818,  at 
the  age  of  35.  Her  grave  is  worthily  marked,  and  is  surrounded  by 
a  park,  owned  and  maintained  by  the  State  of  Indiana.  Illinois,  tard- 
ily following  the  example  of  her  sister  state,  this  day  sends  saluta- 
tions from  this  sacred  spot  to  the  grave  of  Lincoln's  own  mother, 
yonder  in  the  quiet  repose  of  Southern  Indiana. 

Sarah  Bush,  a  daughter  of  Christopher  Bush,  was  born  in  Hardin 
County,  Kentucky,  December  13,  1788.  She  married,  March  13,  1806, 
Daniel  Johnston,  the  jailer  of  that  county.  There  is  a  tradition  that 
Thomas  Lincoln  had  been  a  suitor  for  her  hand  before  her  first  mar- 
riage; if  so,  she  did  not  show  good  judgment  in  rejecting  him.  Her 
first  husband  died  in  October,  1818,  leaving  her  with  three  small  chil- 
dren and  a  very  heavy  indebtedness.  On  December  2,  1819,  she 
married  Thomas  Lincoln.     Her  possessions  in  furniture  were  consid- 

21 


crable  as  compared  with  his,  and  as  he  had  journeyed  from  Indiana 
back  to  Kentucky  on  horseback  to  court  her,  he  had  to  borrow  from 
his  brother-in-law  a  wagon  to  transport  her  and  her  belongings,  in- 
cluding her  three  children,  to  the  new  home  in  Indiana.  From  this 
incident  it  has  been  inferred  that  Thomas  Lincoln  owned  no  horses 
of  his  own  at  the  time.  On  the  contrary,  he  owned  horses,  one  or 
more,  and  sometimes  as  many  as  four  or  five,  from  the  time  he 
reached  the  age  of  twenty-one  until  he  left  Kentucky.  Moreover,  and 
I  have  this  story  direct  from  Mrs.  Bush's  own  relatives,  she  was  un- 
willing to  marry  and  leave  unpaid  debts  behind  her,  and  Thomas  Lin- 
coln was  prepared  for  that  emergency,  and  paid  up  her  debts  before 
their  marriage.  She  has  been  greatly  pitied  for  having  married  so 
shiftless  a  man  as  Thomas  Lincoln,  but  that  pity  has  been  wasted. 
She  needed  a  home  and  a  husband  quite  as  much  as  he  needed  a  wife, 
and  his  two  children  and  her  three  profited  equally  by  the  marriage. 
She  died  December  10,  1869,  and  her  grave  has  never  been  marked 
until  this  day,  that  witnesses  the  unveiling  of  a  suitable  monument 
to  the  memory  of  herself  and  her  husband. 

Thus,  rapidly,  I  sketch  the  outlines  of  these  three  lives,  and  I 
shall  now  take  leave  of  chronology,  and  attempt  some  estimate  of  the 
home  life  of  this  unpretentious  couple,  and  the  influences  that  assisted 
in  shaping  the  career  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  family  from  which  Thomas  Lincoln  was  descended  was  a 
thoroughly  respectable  family.  It  was  of  pure  English  descent,  and 
came  to  America  first  by  way  of  Massachusetts.  In  the  Revolution- 
ary War  there  were  many  colonial  soldiers  named  Lincoln  from  Mas- 
sachusetts and  very  few  from  any  other  state.  Thomas  Lincoln  was 
of  the  sixth  generation  in  descent  from  Samuel  Lincoln,  who  was 
born  in  England  about  1619  and  settled  at  Hingham,  Massachusetts, 
before  1640.  Of  the  second  generation,  Mordecai,  son  of  Samuel  and 
Martha  Lincoln,  of  Hingham,  Massachusetts,  was  born  June  24,  1657, 
and  died  at  Scituate,  Massachusetts,  November  28,  1727.  In  the  third 
generation,  Mordecai,  son  of  Mordecai  and  Sarah  (Jones)  Lincoln 
was  born  at  Hingham,  April  24,  1686,  and  died  at  Amity,  Pennsyl- 
vania, May  12,  1737.  In  the  fourth  generation,  John,  son  of  Mordecai 
and  Hannah  (Salter)  Lincoln,  was  born  at  Freehold,  New  Jersey, 
May  3,  1716,  and  died  at  Linville  Creek,  Virginia,  in  November,  1788. 
In  the  fifth  generation,  Abraham,  son  of  John  and  Rebecca  (Flowers) 
Lincoln,  was  born  in  Berks  County,  Pennsylvania,  May  13,  1744; 
married  Bathsheba  Herring,  removed  to  Rockingham  County,  Vir- 
ginia, where  his  three  sons  and  two  daughters  were  born,  migrated 
to  Kentucky  in  1782,  and  was  killed  there  by  Indians  in  May,  1786. 
This  is  a  line  of  pure  English  descent,  and  it  is  not  known  that  at 
any  point  there  was  inter-marriage  with  any  widely  divergent  strain. 
All  of  these  American  ancestors  of  Thomas  Lincoln  could  read  and 
write,  and  so  could  he;  though  his  education  was  very  meager.  Like 
all  names  on  the  frontier,  the  name  Lincoln  was  misspelled,  but  none 

22 


of  the  Lincolns  misspelled  it.  I  have  seen  hundreds  of  signatures 
and  none  of  them  spelled  otherwise  than  Lincoln. 

This  was  not  a  low-grade  family.  It  was  a  good,  average,  undis- 
tinguished American  family.  The  Lincolns  in  the  hills  of  Kentucky 
were  of  the  same  stock  as  the  Lincolns  in  the  Blue  Grass,  and  these 
were  the  same  in  lineage  as  those  in  Tennessee  and  Virginia,  and 
of  close  kin  to  those  in  Pennsylvania  and  Massachusetts. 

I  should  like  to  correct  a  few  of  the  wrong  impressions  of  Thomas 
Lincoln. 

The  first  is  that  he  was  cheated  out  of  his  share  in  his  father's 
estate  by  the  rapacity  of  his  eldest  brother,  Mordecai.  A  number  of 
sentimental  books  and  some  that  are  of  more  sober  character  have 
sobbed  over  this  situation.  The  fact  appears  to  be  that  as  the  elder 
Abraham  Lincoln  died  intestate,  his  eldest  son,  Mordecai,  inherited 
the  entire  estate  under  the  old  English  law  of  primogeniture  then  in 
force  in  Virginia  and  Kentucky.  But  it  seems  to  have  been  well 
understood  in  such  cases  that  the  eldest  son,  who  only  had  standing 
in  court,  acted  as  guardian  of  the  interests  of  the  younger  heirs.  In- 
deed, Mordecai  himself  was  but  fourteen  when  his  father  was  killed. 
The  court  records,  of  course,  do  not  show  the  transactions  between 
Mordecai  and  his  brothers.  But  the  records  do  show  that  when  the 
second  son,  Josiah,  came  of  age,  Mordecai  sold  land  that  had  been 
his  father's,  and  Josiah  bought  land  for  cash.  They  also  show  that 
when  Thomas  came  of  age,  Mordecai  sold  more  land,  and  soon  after- 
ward, Thomas  bought  for  118  pounds,  cash,  238  acres  of  land  on 
Mill  Creek,  a  farm,  by  the  way,  which  all  writers  have  erred  about, 
but  which  has  now  been  identified.  Where  did  Thomas  obtain  118 
pounds?  Presumably,  from  the  settlement  of  his  father's  estate. 
There  is  no  slightest  evidence  that  he  was  wronged  by  his  brothers. 

I  am  not  prepared  at  present  to  state  just  what  title  Thomas  Lin- 
coln had  to  his  several  farms,  though  this  is  a  story  I  intend  some 
time  to  relate.  He  had  better  color  of  title  than  any  book  now  shows, 
and  he  had  cash,  not  a  vast  sum,  but  an  adequate  sum,  for  each 
purchase. 

I  want  also  to  refute  the  story  that  the  Lincoln  cabin  was  fur- 
nished in  the  most  poverty-stricken  fashion.  I  do  not  credit  the 
stories  of  those  who  profess  to  remember  this  cabin,  and  either  to 
have  shared  its  luxuries  or  suffered  its  privations.  I  think  all  such 
stories  imaginary.  But  we  have  the  record  of  auction  sales  of  a 
number  of  estates  where  Thomas  Lincoln  was  present  as  a  successful 
bidder,  and  he  bought  spoons,  dishes  and  cooking  utensils,  as  well  as 
live  stock  and  implements. 

I  want  to  relate  one  little  incident,  because  it  sheds  a  light  on 
the  character  of  Thomas  Lincoln  while  he  was  still  living  in  Ken- 
tucky. Rev.  Louis  A.  Warren,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  many  dis- 
coveries of  hitherto  unknown  facts  about  the  Lincolns,  discovered  the 
report  of  the  commissioners  appointed  by  the  Court  of  Hardin  County 

23 


to  settle  the  estate  of  Dr.  Daniel  B.  Potter  of  Elizabethtown.  He 
had  died  leaving  a  widow  and  a  large  amount  due  him  in  unpaid 
fees.  He  also  left  debts  amounting  to  $1,560.35^4.  The  commission- 
ers were  able  to  collect  out  of  the  accounts  due  him  the  total  sum 
of  $864.89^2,  leaving  the  estate  still  in  debt  $695.4654.  The  commis- 
sioners record  the  names  of  the  men  from  whom  they  had  been  able 
to  collect,  and  Thomas  Lincoln  is  among  them,  having  paid  in  full 
his  small  balance  of  $1.46.  It  is  a  petty  item,  but  it  shows  that 
when  Nancy  Lincoln  needed  a  doctor  she  had  one,  and  Thomas  Lin- 
coln paid  his  doctor's  bills. 

He  paid  his  taxes  regularly,  and  he  left  no  unpaid  debts  behind 
him  when  he  left  Kentucky  or  Indiana  or  Decatur.  He  lived  and 
died  a  poor  man,  thriftless,  improvident  and  quite  lacking  in  qualities 
that  appeal  to  the  imagination.  But  he  was  a  good  neighbor,  a  good 
father,  a  good  husband. 

I  hold  no  brief  for  Thomas  Lincoln.  He  was  not  a  great  man. 
But  he  was  great  enough  to  be  the  father  of  a  man  of  outstanding- 
greatness,  and  some  of  the  qualities  which  made  Abraham  Lincoln 
great,  his  patience,  his  good  humor,  his  kindliness,  his  love  of  fun, 
he  inherited  from  his  father.  We  cannot  afford  to  hold  in  light  re- 
gard the  man  who  gave  to  the  world  so  great  a  son. 

It  is  often  alleged  that  Thomas  Lincoln  could  not  read  or  write 
until  his  marriage,  and  that  his  wife,  Nancy  Hanks,  taught  him  to 
write.  On  the  contrary,  he  could  "bunglingly  write  his  name"  as  his 
son  Abraham  said,  before  he  was  married,  while  Nancy  made  her 
mark.  That  she  could  read  and  write,  we  are  assured  by  those  who 
knew  her :  that  he  could  do  so  we  are  assured  by  the  fact  that  he  did  it. 

It  is  often  alleged  that  Thomas  Lincoln  was  a  religious  vagrant. 
We  are  told  on  what  appears  to  many  to  have  been  reliable  authority 
of  his  going  from  one  denomination  to  another.  And  we  are  told 
that  it  was  his  second  wife,  Sarah,  who  first  induced  him  to  unite  with 
any  church.  On  the  contrary,  Thomas  Lincoln  and  his  first  wife, 
Nancy  Hanks,  were  members  of  the  Little  Mount  Baptist  Church  in 
Hardin  County,  Kentucky,  and  when  a  Baptist  church  was  organized 
on  Little  Pigeon  Creek  in  Indiana,  he  united  by  letter,  and  his  second 
wife,  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln,  "by  experience."  In  this  church,  he  served 
as  trustee,  often  as  moderator,  sometimes  as  referee  in  matters  of  dis- 
pute, sometimes  as  a  messenger  to  other  churches,  and  when  he  and 
Sarah  departed  to  Illinois,  they  brought  their  church  letters  in  their 
pocket.  There  was  no  Baptist  church  here  within  reach,  and  the 
Lincolns  became  interested  in  the  preaching  of  Rev.  Thomas  Good- 
man, of  Charleston,  a  minister  in  the  Church  of  the  Disciples  of 
Christ.  With  that  congregation,  in  their  later  years,  Thomas  and 
Sarah  Lincoln  were  affiliated.  Rev.  Thomas  Goodman  preached  the 
funeral  sermon  of  Thomas  Lincoln.  I  am  reliably  informed  by  some 
who  heard  it  that  it  could  be  heard  at  a  distance  of  half  a  mile.  Mr. 
Goodman's  sermon  is  not  preserved,  but  he  spoke  highly  of  Thomas 

24 


Copyright  by  Herbert  W.  Fay 


Abraham  Lincoln 


25 


Lincoln  as  a  neighbor,  a  friend  and  a  consistent  Christian  man. 
Thomas  Goodman  stood  here,  where  our  feet  stand  this  day,  and 
committed  to  this  dust  the  dust  of  Thomas  Lincoln;  and  his  old  neigh- 
bors mourned  for  a  man  whom  they  held  in  high  regard  as  an  hon- 
est and  kindly  man  and  a  good  neighbor.  People  still  are  living  who 
remember  the  funeral  and  the  interment,  and  though  they  were  chil- 
dren then  and  are  aged  now,  we  are  glad  of  their  testimony. 

No  one  knew  in  185 1  that  ten  years  later  a  son  of  Thomas  Lincoln 
would  be  sitting  in  the  President's  chair;  and  the  honors  paid  to 
Thomas  at  his  death  were  strictly  local,  and  such  as  would  have  been 
paid  to  any  honest,  well-intentioned  citizen  of  this  locality.  Thirty- 
six  years  afterward,  Rev.  Thomas  Goodman,  being  asked  to  relate 
for  publication  some  of  his  memories  of  Thomas  Lincoln,  said: 

"In  his  case  I  could  not  say  aught  but  good  .  .  .  He  was  a  con- 
sistent member  through  life  of  the  church  of  my  choice — the  Christian 
Church,  or  Church  of  Christ,  and  was,  as  far  as  I  know — and  I  was 
a  very  intimate  friend — illiterate,  yet  always  truthful,  conscientious 
and  religious."* 

Thomas  Lincoln  was  a  farmer  and  a  carpenter.  He  was  not 
greatly  skilled  in  either  trade,  but  in  neither  was  he  wholly  a  failure. 
He  was  a  fair,  average  country  carpenter.  He  could  frame  a  window 
or  hang  a  door  or  build  a  chest  of  drawers  and  do  it  well.  Skill  in 
the  use  of  tools  ran  in  the  Lincoln  family.  I  have  seen  samples  of 
the  carpenter  work  of  a  number  of  the  Lincolns,  both  of  Thomas 
Lincoln  and  of  his  kinsfolk  in  Hancock  County.  They  knew  how  to 
mortise  and  dove-tail  and  do  the  ordinary  work  that  counted  for  skill 
in  the  carpentry  of  that  day.  The  making  of  coffins  was  a  large 
part  of  the  work  of  the  carpenter  of  that  day.  I  have  seen  the  ac- 
count book  of  Thomas's  nephew,  the  younger  Mordecai.  He  made 
many  coffins,  as  Thomas  did.  Six  dollars  was  his  charge  for  a  full- 
sized  coffin  and  three  dollars  for  a  coffin  for  a  child.  Under  our  feet 
in  this  cemetery  many  of  the  coffins  of  Thomas  Lincoln  have  decayed 
with  the  dust  which  they  inclosed. 

Thomas  Lincoln  had  some  skill  in  farm  surgery,  and  was  sent  for 
when  neighbors  had  need  of  him.  There  are  men  living  in  this  neigh- 
borhood who  remember  to  have  assisted  him  in  some  of  these  rude 
but  effective  operations. 

The  house  where  Thomas  Lincoln  died  in  185 1  and  where  his 
widow  died  in  1869  stood  three  and  one-half  miles  from  here.  It  was 
sold  to  a  corporation  just  before  the  World's  Fair  in  Chicago,  and 
conveyed  there  for  exhibition  purposes.  What  became  of  it  no  one 
appears  to  know.  But  I  have  learned  that  Thomas  Lincoln  lived  in 
that  house  only  two  days  and  one  night.  He  lived  in  a  round-log 
house  on  the  same  farm.     A  round-log  house,  you  understand,  is  not 


*Quoted  by  Hon.  Joseph  H.  Barrett  of  Loveland,  Ohio,  in  the  New 
England  Historical  and  Geneological  'Register  for  July,  1894,  (Vol.  48) 
pp.  327-8. 

26 


a  round  house,  but  a  square  house,  or  at  least  a  rectangular  house, 
built  of  round  or  unhewn  logs.  Round-log  houses  were  the  first 
homes  of  virtually  all  the  pioneers.  But  the  settlers  aspired  to  live 
in  square-log  houses,  that  is,  houses  for  which  the  logs  had  been 
hewn  and  better  fitted,  and  with  wall  surfaces  more  nearly  plane. 
Such  a  house  Thomas  Lincoln  aspired  to  own  and  occupy,  but,  not 
being  an  ambitious  or  excessively  energetic  man,  he  did  not  hasten 
the  matter. 

At  last  the  new  house  was  erected,  a  house  of  two  rooms  with  a 
fire-place  between,  and  it  was  of  hewn  logs.  But  by  the  time  it  was 
finished,  Thomas  Lincoln  was  a  sick  man.  His  step-daughter,  Ma- 
tilda, set  up  a  loom  and  did  some  weaving  in  the  new  house,  but 
Thomas  Lincoln  lay  sick  in  the  round-log  house  near  by. 

On  the  day  before  he  died,  he  grew  restless,  and  insisted  on  being 
moved.  So  a  bed  was  set  up  in  the  new  house,  and  his  step-son, 
John  D.  Johnston,  and  old  Beniah  Wright  moved  him  to  the  new 
home.  He  looked  around  him  in  content.  He  saw  the  smooth  walls, 
hewn  with  his  adz  and  broad-axe,  and  he  was  rested  by  the  sight. 
He  was  in  his  own  new  house.  He  slept  there  that  night,  and  rested 
better  than  he  had  been  resting.  The  next  day  he  died.  They  held 
the  funeral  in  the  new  square-log  house;  and  Parson  Goodman,  stand- 
ing in  the  open  door,  and  preaching  to  the  women  and  children  inside 
and  the  men  outside,  was  heard  not  only  by  both  these  congregations, 
but  by  every  one  else  within  a  considerable  radius,  as  I  have  already 
stated. 

Thomas  Lincoln  was  about  five  feet  and  nine  inches  tall,  and 
weighed  about  180  pounds.  He  had  a  well  rounded  face,  smooth 
shaven.  His  hair  was  cut  round  on  a  level  of  the  bottom  of  his  ears; 
it  was  not  shingled.  He  was  muscular  and  compactly  built,  and  had 
a  slight  stoop.  He  was  jovial,  slow  in  thought  and  in  movement, 
good  natured,  but  a  dangerous  man  when  angry.  He  was  not  a  tee- 
totaler, but  was  temperate  in  his  use  of  liquor,  and  in  that  day  was 
reckoned  abstemious.  He  was  friendly  and  kind,  and  had  deep,  grey 
eyes  that  sometimes  lacked  luster  and  then  kindled  with  a  deep  light. 
He  was  known  in  this  neighborhood  as  "Uncle  Tommy"  and  later  as 
"Grandfather  Lincoln."  His  neighbors  spoke  well  of  him,  and  those 
here  present  who  remember  him  will  not  recall  from  their  childhood 
recollections  anything  to  his  discredit.  He  was  not  educated  or 
learned  or  ambitious ;  he  was  not  brilliant  or  of  extraordinary  abil- 
ity; but  he  had  good  sense,  sound  judgment,  a  kind  heart  and  mod- 
erate ability.     He  was  reliable  and  worthy  of  respect. 

Thomas  Lincoln  won  the  love  of  two  good  women.  Nancy  Hanks, 
the  mother  of  his  three  children,  was  a  slender,  thoughtful  young 
woman,  with  mirth  and  melancholy  alternating  in  her  character. 
From  her,  as  Lincoln  believed,  he  inherited  his  power  of  analysis, 
his  intellectual  alertness  and  his  capacity  for  sustained  thought.  She 
was  a  religious  woman,  and  when  she  was  dying  she  told  her  children 
to  love  God  and  be  kind  to   each  other,  an  admonition  which  they 

27 


obeyed,  holding  her  memory  in  high  regard.  The  clods  fell  heavily 
on  her  whip-sawed  coffin  in  the  woods  of  Indiana,  and  her  death 
fell  as  a  cruel  sorrow  on  the  heart  of  her  son  Abraham.  According 
to  the  custom  of  the  country,  the  funeral  service  was  held  some 
months  later  when  a  traveling  preacher  named  David  Elkin  was  in 
the  neighborhood. 

The  second  wife  of  Thomas  Lincoln,  the  second  mother  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  was  Sarah  Bush,  whose  grave  has  waited  55  years  for 
the  monument  which  we  erect  today.  But  a  monument  has  already 
been  erected  for  her  in  the  memory  of  those  who  knew  of  her  influence 
upon  Abraham  Lincoln.  She  encouraged  his  love  of  learning,  though 
she  had  none  of  it  herself.  She  nurtured  him  in  the  simple  virtues 
which  she  knew  and  practiced.  She  came  to  the  home  when  the 
children,  Abraham  and  his  sister  and  their  cousin,  Dennis  Hanks, 
were  unkempt  and  ragged,  and  she  washed  and  mended  and  patched 
and  darned  and  brought  cleanliness  and  comfort  to  the  home.  She 
was  a  true  mother  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  when  he  was  about  to 
leave  his  home  and  begin  his  duties  as  President  of  the  United  States, 
one  of  the  few  visits  which  he  made  out  of  Springfield  between  his 
election  and  inauguration  was  to  the  old  home  where  he  visited  her, 
and  to  this  spot  where  his  father  lay  buried.  Abraham  Lincoln  saw 
to  it  that  so  long  as  she  lived,  she  had  a  home  of  her  own,  which 
even  her  improvident  and  importunate  relatives  could  not  take  away 
from  her;    and  in  that  home  she  lived  until  her  death. 

We  are  erecting  this  monument  above  the  graves  of  very  humble 
people.  If  anyone  had  called  at  the  door  of  the  round-log  house 
over  on  Goose  Nest  Prairie  and  told  Thomas  and  Sarah  Lincoln  that 
one  day  a  monument  like  this  would  mark  their  grave,  they  would 
have  been  much  bewildered.  They  could  hardly  have  understood  the 
information.  But  the  monument  is  well  deserved,  and  has  waited  all 
too  long.  The  world  has  on  the  whole  monuments  enough,  and  some 
of  them  are  of  very  doubtful  value.  But  it  has  none  too  many  that 
commemorate  the  virtues  that  we  honor  in  these  two  untitled  Ameri- 
cans, these  two  modest  servants  of  God.  In  honoring  them  we  pay 
honor  again  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  to  his  first  mother,  Nancy 
Hanks.  And  we  honor  the  rugged  honesty,  the  simple  dignity,  the 
unpretentious  piety,  that  characterized  the  home  life  of  Thomas  and 
Sarah  Lincoln. 

The  most  ominous  sign  in  the  life  of  today  is  the  disintegration 
of  the  American  home.  America  will  be  strong  in  proportion  as  her 
home  life  is  clean  and  united  and  virtuous  and  strong.  The  inscrip- 
tions on  this  monument  are  of  the  simplest  possible  character.  They 
bear  only  the  names  of  Thomas  and  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln  and  the 
years  of  their  birth  and  death,  and  one  simple  sentence.  But  that  sen- 
tence is  one  of  noble  eulogy: 

"Their  Humble  but  Worthy  Home  Gave  to  the  World 
Abraham  Lincoln." 

28 


Judge  John  F.  Garner 

Quincy,  Illinois 

Former  International  Director  of  Lions  Clubs 


29 


THE  PRESENTATION  OF  THE  MONUMENT 

BY  JUDGE  JOHN  F.  GARNER 

This  day  among  the  Lions  of  Illinois  is  one  long  to  be  remem- 
bered. We  have  here  erected  and  dedicated  a  monument  to  the  hon- 
ored name  of  Lincoln.  It  matters  not  how  poor  a  man  may  be  or 
how  rich  he  may  be;  it  matters  not  whether  his  life  be  crowded  with 
honor  and  success  or  whether  he  be  obscure  or  is  a  failure  as  viewed 
by  others;  there  is  in  the  heart  of  every  man  an  innate  desire  to 
have  the  last  resting  place  of  his  progenitor  suitably  marked  and 
cared  for.  This  devotion  is  akin  to  the  love  for  his  own  children, 
and  upon  such  sentiments  depend  the  safety  of  any  nation. 

It  is  written  "And  now  abideth  faith,  hope,  charity,  these  three; 
but  the  greatest  of  these  is  charity."  We  are  not  left  to  wonder  or 
speculate  as  to  their  relative  values  for  it  is  stated,  the  greatest  of 
these  is  charity.  But  when  the  Great  Ten  Commandments  were  given, 
we  were  left  to  presume  that  they  are  all  equally  imperative.  Today, 
however,  one  stands  out  in  the  minds  of  every  one  here,  as  a  reason 
for  our  being  here.  "Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  as  the  Lord 
thy  God  hath  commanded  thee;  that  thy  days  may  be  prolonged,  and 
that  it  may  go  well  with  thee,  in  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God 
giveth  thee."  And  we  are  here,  not  to  honor  our  own  fathers  and 
mothers,  but  to  honor  the  father  and  step-mother  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln for  his  sake. 

The  Lions  International  demands  above  all  else — Loyalty,  Intelli- 
gence, Our  Nation's  Safety.  Just  so  long  as  a  people  honor  their 
dead,  cherish  and  protect  their  living,  will  patriotism  flourish  and  our 
nation's  safety  be  secure  by  an  intelligent  civilization. 

Misguided  philanthropists  oftentimes  place  the  end  to  be  attained 
on  such  a  high  plane  they  sacrifice  the  means  of  attainment  and 
debauch  the  participants  in  the  enterprise.  No  class  of  men  in  the 
world  deplore  war  and  the  tragic  consequences  that  follow  in  its 
train  more  than  the  Lions.  But  even  war  with  all  its  evil  conse- 
quences is  better  for  a  nation — better  for  the  individuals  who  com- 
pose it,  than  that  doctrine  of  the  pacifists  now  insiduously  being  spread 
that  we  must  not  fight  no  matter  what  the  issue  may  be. 

The  illustrious  son  of  the  man  to  whom  this  monument  of  stone 
is  erected  was  the  type  of  man  who  would  injure  no  one  and  yet  he 
recognized  the  fact  that  principle  and  right  could  not  be  sacrificed 
even  to  avoid  war  and  without  hesitation  he  called  the  militia  to  pre- 
serve the  LTnion.  He  faced  the  issue  of  peace  at  the  price  of  disin- 
tegration of  the  Union.  Had  he  followed  the  peace  at  any  price 
declarant  of  today,  he  would  have  lived  to  do  the  service  the  Lions 
are  doing  today  in  marking  his  father's  grave.     But  he  would  have 

30 


sacrificed  what  was  more  precious  to  him  than  his  life.  He  would 
have  killed  his  self-respect  in  shirking"  a  responsibility  and  murdered 
patriotism  of  posterity  in  America. 

Better  that  he  too  should  have  given  his  life  than  that  truth  and 
right  be  crushed  to  earth.  I  cannot  but  feel  if  he  had  known  in  his 
lifetime  that  his  end  would  be  as  it  was,  he  too  would  have  said  that 
his  only  regret  was  that  he  had  but  one  life  to  give  for  his  country. 

And  so  today,  this  band  of  faithful  disciples  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
are  performing"  for  him  this  service  of  suitably  and  permanently 
marking  the  graves  of  his  loved  father  and  respected  step-mother, 
as  he  would  have  done  had  he  lived.  We  are  happy,  each  one  of  us 
who  have  participated  in  this  event  in  any  particular,  to  look  toward 
his  magnificent  tomb  and  say  to  him  that  we  are  doing  this  for  his 
sake  as  we  know  he  would  have  done  had  he  lived,  and  as  we  believe 
he  would  have  us  do.  With  all  our  pomp  and  ceremony,  we  do  not 
presume  to  dedicate  this  beautiful  monument  to  the  memory  of  his 
father  in  the  same  manner  he  would  have  done.  His  act  would  be 
filled  with  the  tender  love  of  a  dutiful  son  gratefully  acknowledging" 
parental  care.  We,  who  are  strangers  to  his  blood  can  but  render 
the  homage  that  our  reason  dictates  and  conscience  commends.  We 
have  tried  in  our  humble  way  to  do  this  thing  as  he  would  have  us 
do  it.  We  have  done  this  because  Illinois  gave  him  in  service  to  the 
Country.  Many  illustrious  men  have  come  from  Illinois,  but  none 
greater  than  the  son  of  the  man  to  whom  this  monument  is  dedicated. 
Oh  !  you  other  States  of  this  United  States,  join  with  us  when  we  sing: 

' '  Not  without   thy   wondrous    story, 

Illinois,  Illinois, 
Can  be  writ  the  Nation's  glory, 

Illinois,  Illinois. 
On   the   Record   of   the   years, 

Abraham  Lincoln's  name  appears, 
Grant,  and  Logan,  and  our  tears, 

Illinois,  Illinois. ' ' 

If  I  could  but  impress  upon  my  hearers  and  Lions  everywhere, 
the  value  of  the  study  of  the  lives  of  great  men,  then  would  I  feel 
my  participation  in  this  day  worth  while.  The  arts  and  sciences  are 
necessary  in  the  education  of  man.  But  history  and  biography  bind 
him  so  close  to  the  past  that  he  is  able  to  understand  the  present  and 
trust  in  the  future.  May  we  go  from  here  with  that  determination 
to  study  the  lives  of  all  our  great  men  and  see  to  it  that  posterity 
saves  at  least  some  time  from  the  pursuit  of  folly  for  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  lives  that  have  been  worth  while. 

With  this  dedication  today,  the  Lions  of  Illinois  have  finished 
their  work  of  permanently  marking  this  hallowed  spot.  The  task  has 
been  well  done  and  Lionism  in  this  State  and  everywhere  will  rejoice 
in  its  completion.  It  is  my  simple  task  to  officially  turn  over  this 
mark  of  their  esteem  to  the  local  association  for  future  care.     We 

31 


tender  you  this  monument  with  the  gladness  of  heart  of  every  Ameri- 
can who  loves  and  reveres  the  name  of  Lincoln.  May  it  stand  here 
among  you  as  a  constant  reminder  to  the  world  that  the  father  and 
mother  of  a  great  man  are  recognized  and  remembered  as  having 
been  the  dominant  force  and  factor  in  making  that  great  man.  We 
ask  you  to  receive  this  into  your  care  and  keeping  in  the  same  rev- 
erent manner  in  which  it  is  given  and  see  to  it  that  through  the  ages 
that  may  come  that  it  may  be  maintained  sacred  to  the  memory  of 
him  in  whose  name  it  has  been  erected.  Then  indeed  will  we  all 
have  kept  the  faith. 


Mrs.  Susan  D.  Baker 

Janesville,  Illinois 

President  Lincoln  Memorial 

Association 


ACCEPTANCE  BY  MRS.  SUSAN  D.  BAKER 

In  the  name  of  the  Shiloh  Lincoln  Memorial  Association  we  thank 
you  for  this  beautiful  monument.  We  accept  it  from  the  Lions  Clubs 
of  the  State  of  Illinois  with  gratitude  for  their  work  in  fulfilling  the 
wish  of  Abraham  Lincoln  which  he  made  by  the  side  of  his  father's 
grave  in  February,  1861.  We  thank  Mr.  Wayne  C.  Townley  for  his 
assistance  which  made  this  possible. 

It  is  a  great  day  for  us  because  you  have  fulfilled  our  hopes. 

32 


OFFICERS  ILLINOIS  LIONS  CLUBS 

Wayne  C.  Townley,  District  Governor,  Bloomington 
Arthur  Gottschalk,  District  Secretary,  Springfield 


MEMORIAL  COMMITTEE 

Judge  John  F.  Garner,  Quincy 

H.  R.  Van  Gunten,  Chicago 

H.  B.  Hill,  Springfield 

Loyd  Cox,  West  Frankfort 

Judge  Clyde  Vogelsang,  "Taylorville 

J.  S.  Wyatt,  Treasurer  of  Fund,  Bloomington 


This  monument  has  been  erected  by  the  Lions  Clubs  of  Illinois 
through  the  contributions  of  the  following  clubs: 


Aurora 

Benton 

Bloomington 

Blue  Island 

Carbondale 

Carterville 

Chicago  Heights 

Christopher 

Collinsville 

Du  Quoin 

East  St.-  Louis 

Eldorado 

Elgin 

Elmhurst 

Galesburg 

Gibson  City 

Glen  Ellyn 

Greenville 

Highland 

Hinsdale 

Joliet 

Kankakee 

Marion 

Mattoon 

Maywood 

Momence 

Individual  members  of  the  Decatur  Club 


Mt.  Vernon 

Oak  Park 

Olney 

Peoria 

Pittsfield 

Quincy 

Sesser 

Springfield 

Taylorville 

West  Frankfort 

Chicago — 

Austin 
Central  Club 
Hyde  Park 

Irving,  Jefferson  and  Port- 
age Parks 
Logan  Square 
Roseland 
South  Chicago 
Uptown 

Washington  Park 
West  Englewood 
West  Pullman 
Woodlawn 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 


3  0112  002245139 


